


Through Dooms of Love

by thequidditchpitch_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, Angst, Dark, Drama, Explicit Language, Friendship, Post-Hogwarts, Romance, The Quidditch Pitch: Leaving Feast, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-08-08
Updated: 2006-08-08
Packaged: 2018-10-26 15:26:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10789425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequidditchpitch_archivist/pseuds/thequidditchpitch_archivist
Summary: A Ron/Hermione story set three years post-Hogwarts. A tale of love and loss.





	Through Dooms of Love

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Annie, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Quidditch Pitch](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Quidditch_Pitch), which went offline in 2015 when the hosting expired, at a time I was not able to renew it. I contacted Open Doors, hoping to preserve the archive using an old backup, and began importing these works as an Open Doors-approved project in April 2017. Open Doors e-mailed all authors about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact us using the e-mail address on [The Quidditch Pitch collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thequidditchpitch/profile).

  
Author's notes:

This was the third HP story I wrote, written in Dec. 03- Jan. 04, therefore very AU, and before I began writing slash. I've polished it up some, but be gentle, for those of you who know my more recent writing. Someone recently found it and enjoyed it, so I thought I'd post it here.

* * *

There was a _crack!_ as Ron Apparated into their cramped house, shaking off the chill of the blustery evening he had left behind in the windy streets of Glasgow. The rooms were dark, but cozy in a decidedly intimate way that made his blood rush, and for a wild minute he contemplated shrugging off not only his robe, but all of his clothes. The youngest Weasley son had learned some restraint over the past few years, however. After taking a moment to get his bearings in the — scented, he now noted — dimness, he padded toward the bedroom. Christmas music wafted down the hallway, the words and tune unfamiliar to him. He tread quietly to the doorframe, and out of long self-unnoticed habit, tugged through his long hair, currently pulled back from his face in a ponytail. There was a bit of unruly curl to it which manifested itself the more he let it grow, but continued protestations that he was only "wearing it Black" meant that for the most part, his parents had finally stopped giving him grief about it.

Hermione had never complained.

Ron stood, shadowlike, looking in on her. She lay on their blanket-covered bed, the green cabled throw being her first large hand-knitted project. It was also Crookshanks' favorite perch, and he lay at her feet, curled in on himself. Hermione's eyes were shut, her normally errant mane restrained by several clips. Instead of her wand, she had a Muggle apparatus pointed at their stereo, her hand resting on the bed. As Ron lingered, he knew that he had heard that song before.

It'd been mere moments prior; Hermione had the one song set on repeat. It was one of several aspects about her that threatened both to drive him raving mad and simultaneously wish to drown in her idiocentricities. The latter was a word she had accidentally fabricated, and it well explained some of her complicated Muggle/Wizard attributes; a kind of muddied sense of self that Ron had never had to worry about.

His rather soggy mind began to pick up on the words of the music in their decidedly non-magic loop.

_No sad thought his soul affright, sleep it is that maketh night;  
Let no murmur nor rude wind to his slumbers prove unkind…_

Ron walked into the room and gingerly sprawled near Hermione, hoping not to disturb her. As the harmonies continued through the tonal paths written by their composer, he took a quick glance to the side table and saw with stifled satisfaction that the flowers he had ordered were there. The glass vase which held them subtly changed hues from scarlet to deepest violet and back again. Inside were tiger lilies. Her favorite.

With confident fingers he traced the smooth skin above her eyebrows, not wishing to wake her, but rather to ground himself. So much had been taken away from him, and from her, as the war with Voldemort continued to rage on uncountable fronts. As he was currently sequestered away from it all, for a quiet moment he reflected that he was the luckiest man alive. He savoured her sacred everydayness and even occasional haughty barbs which accidentally fell from her tongue. They reminded him of their days at Hogwarts when they were younger, so innocent despite the trials they had undergone.

Recklessly Ron leaned into Hermione. He closed his eyes, breathing in the jasmine scent of her hair ("Something to smell like summer, Ron; you just aren't affected by day after day after day of grey skies like I am, you lucky git!"), and lay fully on his side, his fingers loosening two of Hermione's clips so that he could entangle his hands in her frizzy hair.

_This is good,_ he reveled. He cracked one eye half-open to gaze at her, then at the flowers. It was their first wedding anniversary. The week before Christmas, much to his chagrin. But he had never been able to wait, to keep his foot out of his mouth, always spouting off, speaking before thinking. In his seventh year, he had been flabbergasted to discover that beyond their intense bickering lay a profound longing. Even after it had been sealed by several, "Oh, shut up, Ron!"s said by a breathless Hermione, and his being branded by her searing kisses, he had been rather undone by it all.

He, Ron Weasley, one time 'ickle prefect' as named by the twins (one who had even dated Hermione for a short time, though she now swore it was due to some inexplicable Charming concoction that George had tried on her, but Ron was never sure of that), was married to her. He had proposed a year and five days ago. With Ron's heartfelt request, Hermione had discovered an unexpected and vibrant romantic streak. They had eloped and were married only days later, shocking most of their friends and crushing her parents' hopes for a church wedding. That, despite their acknowledgement that their daughter spent most of her time in the Wizarding world, not Muggle.

The song began again. Ron was starting to get a slight headache from the powerful cranberry scent of the enchanted tapers which glowed, hovering above their chest of drawers, when Hermione opened her eyes.

"Hermione," Ron breathed, caressing a cheekbone. "Happy Anniversary." He paused a moment. "I love you."

A slow smile warmed her face. "And I you." She gazed at him for a few moments, then leaned over to place a soft kiss on his lips. "Thank you for the flowers, they're simply glorious. I watered them." They both glanced at the gift arrangement, the glass container still shifting its hues in a gentle pattern. She took his hands in hers. "Still nothing," she murmured.

Ron bit down on his lower lip in frustration and anger. It had been over three months since anyone had heard from Harry, who had disappeared. It was bad enough that Hermione, his heart's desire, was an Auror, but Harry, still his best friend in the world, was one as well, and for him simply to vanish—

Just at that moment, two loud noises simultaneously shattered the reverent mood. The telephone near their bed rang, and an owl tapped its beak on the window.

"Gah!" Hermione squealed while Ron shot up from the bed.

"Fuck!" he exclaimed.

As Hermione gave him a reproachful look while leaning over to answer the phone, Ron tumbled over the blanket, stretching to the window to let in the owl. He half-listened to Hermione, who was speaking to her parents, apparently; he had yet to get used to that particular device, despite his own father's obsession with Muggle artifacts.

Crookshanks growled at Ron. "Hush, you!"

Ron didn't recognise the owl, which gave him his second affronted glance in mere seconds, then hooted worryingly at seeing the cat. After giving the bird what he hoped was a reassuring smile and stroking its head, he removed the parchment from its leg.

"Ron," Hermione said, relief poorly disguised in her voice, "Dad's ill and can't come over with Mum tonight. Do you mind if they reschedule for dinner?"

"No, bright eyes."

She smiled in response, having been called by her favorite nickname.

As she brought the conversation with her mother to a close, Ron mouthed the words, _"I'd forgotten, anyway."_

She nodded, placing the handset on to the receiver while Ron unrolled the recently arrived paper, quickly scanning its news. He scrunched up his eyes and held the parchment close to his face, trying to read the scrawled message. After a few minutes, he lowered the page. "Well, what is it?" Hermione demanded, now flustered and somewhat anxious.

Ron shook his head, incredulous, but also furious, as though he had just seen his beloved Chudley Cannons almost win the Quidditch Cup, only to falter in the last seconds of the game.

"Malfoy," he spat, handing her the page. "Draco, that is. He's changed sides and since he provided so much information, they've let him go."

Hermione's jaw dropped. "Let him go?" she repeated, disbelievingly. "Just go, free, just like that?"

Ron nodded savagely. "They reckon he'll leave the U.K. — maybe even Europe."

"Who's it from?" she asked, an officious tone creeping into her voice.

"Neville."

With slightly trembling fingers, Hermione reached over to the bedside table to pick up her glasses. She put them on and read the parchment as Ron gnawed on an already well-bitten fingernail. She hadn't needed glasses at Hogwarts, despite all of the hours spent in the relatively dim light of the Gryffindor common room. It was only after she had been ambushed earlier that year, her first as an Auror. Ron had spent seventy-two anguish-ridden hours at her side at St. Mungo's, unsure how much of the damage sustained by the multiple _Crucio_ curses inflicted on her would be permanent. After three days of intense work by the Healers, it appeared that Hermione would recover, but her eyesight had never been the same.

Hermione had, rather to Ron's displeasure, gone to Bulgaria to attend the wedding of Viktor Krum. While sightseeing for one day in Sofia, she had been savagely attacked. It was only thanks to Neville, who had been sent to the Balkans as part of the war on Voldemort, that Hermione had survived at all. Neville had kept his interest in herbology, but in his last two years at Hogwarts he had also decided to become an Auror and revenge his parents. This decision had happened to coincide with a rather sudden growth spurt and a supportive girlfriend, Muriel Finnigan, a cousin of Seamus'. Hermione had been within Neville's sights on the cobbled street, meeting him for coffee, when a Death Eater suddenly appeared.

Now Ron curled up behind her, re-reading the page over her shoulder and stroking her back. After a couple of minutes she put the paper down as well as her glasses.

"Kiss me?" she asked plaintively. With longing hands, he turned her face to his. Their lips met, warmth on cold, and Ron closed his eyes. He deepened the exchange, his tongue running around her lips, then seeking the heat of her mouth as his left hand found a familiar lodging on her right temple, her wiry hair sheltering his fingers. He breathed in a warm breath of cinnamon/orange as they kissed, each small wave of heated air lighting fires which smoldered in his groin. His long fingers slowly, but with purpose, traced achingly taut curves of her chest until she began to moan.

Ron cradled her as he rolled onto his back, and Hermione raised up from him, chilled currents taking the place of her familiar and suddenly-missed flesh. He began to breathe more shallowly, the heat from under her skirt radiating into his now noticeable hardness. Her dexterous hands started at his neck, unbuttoning his green shirt.

As she did so, she shook her head, and Ron raised himself up onto his elbows. "What?" he asked, his voice a convoluted mixture of lust and lingering insecurity.

Hermione continued to undo his oxford with painstakingly regular movements. Her short fingernails occasionally raked across his torso under his fiery chest hair, usually followed by a delicate tongue-flick, making Ron's breathing even more irregular. For a brief moment, she sat upright, answering his question with her own.

"How is it that someone with your colouring ends up looking rather ill in green?"

She trailed her index finger across the image above his heart: a knight who went through a continuous, but repetitive, range of motions; parrying right, then hopping astride a broom and catching a Snitch, then dismounting and parrying left, again and again. It was the emblem of the newest fledgling Quidditch team in the British Isles, the Green Knights of Glasgow, who'd hired Ron to be their assistant coach.

Ron rolled his eyes before grabbing Hermione's hands and clutching at them, pulling them behind his head so that he could kiss her again. They spent several minutes in that fashion, Hermione straddling him, Ron rubbing the straining warmth of his affections against her midsection, even as she freed her hands to undo the rest of his shirt, tugging it off of him. They rolled sideways on the bed, their hands greedily searching for warm skin, when Ron mumbled, "What? What is it?"

Extricating herself from his passionate mouth, she replied, "Nothing! I wasn't saying anything."

Then they both heard it. Ron's name was being called from the tiny living room, which housed an even tinier fireplace.

"Oh, bloody hell!" he swore, as Hermione affectionately thwacked his head. "I'll be right back," he promised, not bothering to dress as he got up from the bed.

"Ronald Weasley, the Glaswegians have made you quite the foul-mouth!"

A smirking grin twitched at the corner of his lips as Ron jogged the few steps into the next room where he collapsed on his knees before the fire grating. It was Fred.

Ron's older brother gave him a quick going-over from the fireplace, then shut his eyes in mock horror. "Please, Ron— don't you ever wear a shirt? A man could go blind looking at your pasty …"

"Piss off!" was the hasty reply. "It is my anniversary, after all." As soon as Ron had uttered the words, he regretted it, and began spluttering, "Not that I'm going to talk to you about it, I'm not telling you a fucking detail-"

"Ron!" Fred exclaimed. "The last thing I want to hear about — ever — is your love life." The head in the fireplace shuddered, then looked back into the room. "I thought you should know that Malfoy-"

"Free," Ron said venemously. "I know. Got an owl from Neville."

Fred made an appraising sound.

Ron wrapped his lightly-muscled arms around his now very cold chest. "He thought Hermione should know." A self-indulgent thought crossed his mind. "Would you like to tell her as well? She does happen to be winning 'most popular Granger-Weasley' this evening."

Ron was still reconciling himself to her choice not to take his family name exclusively, but had decided that it wasn't worth arguing over. Fred looked cross. Behind him, Ron could just see some of he shelves from the newly-expanded joke shop being restocked by his fiancée, an indescribably tolerant Muggle named Rose McLaughlin.

"Sure," Fred replied. "Anything to keep from seeing your scrawny—"

"Hermione!" Ron yelled. "Fred wants to talk to you." Ron's pale face beamed as she shuffled in, wearing a fluffy pink bathrobe and looking rather morose.

"I'll be outside for a few minutes," he said, winking.

"Oh Ron," she sighed, then sat down before the fireplace. Magical Christmas lights blinked red, gold, green and violet in a sophisticated pattern that Hermione had created, a nod to her affections for arithmancy and ordered chaos in general.

"Filthy habit, you know!" her voice arched toward him as he dug through a kitchen drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. He delved around some more and found an ancient lighter, but as he shook it, he saw that the contents had evaporated. Shrugging, he decided to take his chances and use his wand to light it on their small porch.

"I'm pretty sure I tasted Grand Marnier on your lips, my dear," he said, making a brief reappearance in the living room to kiss her on the forehead. "A habit is a habit." He went back to their room, stretched a well-worn tracksuit top over his head, donned his coat, complete with Green Knights of Glasgow green and white striped scarf, and left the house to go smoke in the cold air.

Once outside, after a hasty glance to right and left, he murmured an _Incendio_ , and the end of his cigarette burned cheerfully. Ron put it to his lips and deeply inhaled before letting out a satisfying stream of smoke. The moon seemed almost full, or just past, as it gleamed brightly in the night sky. It shone down on Ron as he put his wand in his coat pocket and tossed one end of the scarf over his right shoulder. Absentmindedly, his freckled fingers raked through his long hair as he stood leaning against one of the skewed banister railings. After another drag, still staring at the heavy moon, Ron decided that he had time to take a short walk down the road.

The last time that Fred had made such a visit in the fireplace, his fiancée had spent at least thirty minutes talking to Hermione about their upcoming wedding, and bridesmaid's dresses, and the like. Once Ron had been able to get a word in edgewise, he'd stared at his older brother.

"Fred," he had said, quite sincerely, "what are you thinking? Elope, like we did! Mum's already broken in. She won't cry as much when you tell her."

Fred had gazed back sympathetically, but shook his head. "Rose won't hear of it." His eyes regained their more usual mischievous quality. "Besides, without her nieces and nephews, where else would George be able to try out a few of our newest products?" Ron had been mid-swig on a butterbeer as that sentence was spoken. He'd choked immediately, but his noises were luckily unheard in his home due to the fact that Hermione had decided to take a shower. That had led to far more lucky circumstances for him after saying goodbye to his brother.

Ron briefly shuddered, brought back to the present as he apprised the stars overhead. Their light was so distant as to seem brittle; the wind which had assaulted him earlier in the day during his team's training drills was now completely absent. As Ron rummaged through his right coat pocket for the pack of cigarettes, his mind wandered through the exercises the Green Knights had performed, mulling through the strengths and weaknesses of his Beaters and Keepers as he lit a second cigarette from the one he had just finished. He turned to return to their house, and continued walking after tossing the still-glowing papers to the ground, lost in thought about his rather youthful team.

_But by damn,_ he thought, _they have talent, even if they don't have much experience._

He was rather startled as he realised that he was already almost at his house on Gaffer's Row. _Must walk faster when I'm thinking about Quidditch,_ he decided as he took one last drag, then dropped the cigarette and ground it out with the heel of a rather shoddy shoe. Out of habit, Ron unbuttoned his overcoat and flapped it in an effort to rid it of some of the smell before heading in through the front door. He took the narrow stairs two at a time and gave his coat to the first hand which protruded from a rack of five near the door, a wedding gift from Ginny.

Hermione was, he noted sadly, fully dressed again, her hair mostly tidy, and she was using their martini shaker to make a drink. "Bright eyes," he began, "why don't we just have some wine? Isn't it a bit late…" His voice trailed off as she turned to look at him and he heard their toilet flush. There was someone else in the house.

Ron was so stunned that he simply stood there for a moment, his fingers hanging loosely from his beltloops. A man only slightly shorter than himself walked into the kitchen, hair impeccably groomed, but his clothes appearing to be rather travel-worn.

"Weasley," the man said benignly.

Instinctively Ron reached for his wand, but it was in his coat pocket on the wall.

"Ron!" Hermione gasped, her hand clutching at his elbow to restrain him as he leaned toward the coatrack. "Draco is visiting."

His blue eyes stared incomprehensively.

"We're just having a couple of gimlets. He's on his way to the States, via Iceland." She silently pleaded with him, as Draco's visage took on its more usual haughty look.

"I hope I'm not intruding, Weasley." The voice, while silky smooth, grated on Ron as though he were being flayed.

"It's our anniversary, Malfoy. Shite!" Ron exploded, his voice tremulous. "What the bloody hell are you doing here?" He took a brief moment to breathe. "And who let you in?"

Draco smiled, gazing calmly at Hermione.

"Ron!" Hermione purred, cautiously. "He's our guest. Draco has helped out the Order in ways that no one else could. Here." She opened up a cabinet, took out a wine glass, and handed him an open bottle of shiraz. "Have a drink. We all should."

Ron's vision was temporarily clouded with rage, but he took out the cork and poured himself a full glass as Hermione poured the gimlets for Draco and herself. As they all went into the den and Hermione waved her wand at the fireplace, the room was filled with cheery light, and Ron found that he wasn't quite as on edge as he had been a few minutes prior. _He has turned his back on his family,_ he thought quickly. _But I still don't like him in my house. Our house._

The three settled into seats, Ron and Hermione on a futon and Draco in a cushioned chair. Ron placed himself right next to his wife, placing a long arm strategically around Hermione's narrow shoulder, letting his fingers play with the ties on her shirt sleeve above her elbow. Despite himself, he began to relax as they spoke of the past few years, even when Draco told them some of what the Death Eaters had been doing in recent months.

"And you, Weasley. What are you doing?"

"Well," Ron replied, putting his wine glass down and feeling for his shirt logo only to realise that he was still in his ragged tracksuit top, and his oxford was probably lying crumpled on the bed, "I'm the assistant coach for a new Quidditch team."

Draco's grey eyes lit up. "New Quidditch team? Really?"

Despite himself, Ron leaned in. "Yes. The Green Knights of Glasgow. The team's a bit green, yet," he said. At this, Hermione groaned and took a large swig of her gimlet. "But loads of innate skill." Ron toyed with the glass in his hand. "I didn't think you were much into Quidditch, beyond the Slytherin team."

A wry smile flit across Draco's face. "There's not a lot you would ever have thought of me. As a Seeker I did what I could to beat Potter, but it never worked."

At Harry's name, Hermione stiffened.

Ron turned his head to look at her, then whipped back around to Draco. "Do you know where he is?"

As Draco shook his head, Crookshanks, in a shot of orange fur, rushed hissing at the door. Seconds later, a rather unrecognizable sound of solid wood crashing to the ground filled the room. Ron leapt to his feet, hearing glass shatter as Draco, with catlike grace, snatched into his robe pocket for his wand, his martini glass thrown against the wall in the process.

Three Death Eaters entered the room.

_"Stupify!"_ Draco snarled, the spell hitting one on the right in the middle of the chest as it slumped to the floor.

Hermione screamed, then slid from the futon to the floor, crawling toward their bedroom to retrieve her wand. Green light from hastily uttered spells glanced past Ron's head as he desperately took in the situation.

_He brought them here!_ his mind raged, until seconds later he realised that Malfoy was fighting **against** the Death Eaters.

"Weasley!" Draco yelled, running at the black-cloaked figures. "Get Granger! It's her they want!"

For a split second, Ron took in the chartreuse colour of Hermione's gimlet dripping from the table to the floor, tossed aside as she made her mad dash on hands and knees from the room. Then he rushed forward past the first figure in black, seeing that Draco had aimed a particularly nasty spell at its face, launching himself at his coat and his wand.

"Duck!"

Even as he heard the hoarse cry, Ron dropped to the floor. Whizzing red light shot right above his head, burning a large hole into the wall. His coat fell on his head, and for a confused few seconds Ron couldn't see, but then he threw it off, wand in hand and aimed for the third Death Eater.

Hermione had emerged from their room, shouting spells as fast as her mouth could form the words. Many of them found their mark, and another of the figures collapsed to the ground. The third, however, seemed to be of a different caliber than the others. In a surprise wandflick and a bitterly uttered, " _Avada Kedavra!_ ," Hermione was thrown onto the hardwood, blood trickling from her nose.

"HERMIONE!" Ron yelled, taking precious seconds to look at his wife. With a howl of rage, he ran straight at the black-hooded figure, his wand aimed at its heart. As he did, the tall man ripped off his mask. Ron's jaw dropped and he skidded in his tracks as he saw who it was: Lucius Malfoy, incomprehensibly escaped from Azkaban. Wands levelled, father and son stared at each other, the mutual hatred in their gazes forming an almost-visible bond across the room.

"So it comes to this, does it, Draco?" Lucius growled the words, never losing eye contact with Draco. "To say that I despise you would be an understatement. You aren't worthy to be a Malfoy."

Draco stood, breathing heavily, his wand pointed unwaveringly at his father's heart. "The feeling is mutual. And you're a terrible father. Protecting a mudblood was the least I could do before sending you beyond the veil, where you belong."

Lucius sneered. "Your first heroic attempt as a turncoat, and you've failed."

"Not yet!" Draco yelled, and not quite in tandem, the two golden-haired figures raged differing curses, venom in both voices. _"AVADA KEDAVRA!"_ Draco bellowed as Lucius hissed something that sounded like _"MEDUSAVRA MORI!"_ Ron stared, horrified, as green light shot from Draco's wand into Lucius' chest even as a hideous snakelike creature barreled straight from Lucius' wand toward Draco's heart, seemingly passing through him, then slithering into a black vapour which hovered in the air before dissipating.

It was as though time had slowed as the two Malfoys reeled, Lucius falling first. Draco crashed into the coffee table, heavy shards of glass unwittingly forming a deadly pillow under his head. Ron ran to him, falling in on himself as he sank to the floor, trying frantically to move the glass, to ask the questions which burned at his lips while his heart thrashed in his ribs.

"Why?" Ron wailed. "Why Hermione?"

Draco's eyes began to close. "Vengeance." He coughed a few times. "He was going after Potter. Thought that being fresh out of Azkaban and killing Granger, he'd bring Potter out into the open." Blood burbled up into the corner of his mouth. Veiled grey eyes looked up at Ron, who sat, stunned. "I'm sorry I failed, Weasley. Timing was rather off."

Ron felt his hand lightly squeezed. He tried to force his lungs to work, tried to absorb the dead Death Eaters in the kitchen, Draco dying at his knees, Hermione in the corridor. "I'll be right back," he promised, lowering Draco's head reverently to the floor. He crawled on hands and knees to Hermione, still leaning askance against the wall of their hallway, her wand lying useless on the dusty wood.

She wasn't breathing. Ron took her precious face in his hands, ran his thumbs over her recently-waxed eyebrows, then kissed her eyelids. Silently he held her in his arms as he lowered her to the floor, murmuring apologies for his uncouth behavior, for not having his wand when he should have. As he continued to hold on to her, he told her how much he loved her, how she could burn those candles anytime she wanted, he'd never complain, he'd never smoke again…

Over time, he surrendered, and sobbed unconsolably into her neck. He was rather unable to notice that Crookshanks was weaving through his arms before settling at Hermione's ankles, mewing pitifully.

***

A week later, Ron sat with Lupin in a Muggle pub.

He had held up pretty well at the funeral, at least until Mrs. Granger had come up to him and presented him with a small packet of papers. As tears dropped silently from her bloodshot eyes, she whispered that she thought he should have them. It was the notes and letters he had sent Hermione, some dating back to their fifth year at Hogwarts. Mrs. Granger had found them as she had been scouring the house for any and all of her daughter's things, tangible evidence of her only child, now gone forever. Ron had lost his composure at that point, clutching Mrs. Granger to him, his crying more like dry heaves than actual weeping.

Even Draco had been given a proper funeral, with classmates in attendance Ron hadn't seen in years, many whose names he couldn't remember, some coming from places as far away as South America. Narcissa was conspicuously absent.

Once back at their home, Ron had dumbly noted that it had been cleaned up, the multi-coloured vase holding the tiger lilies still shifting its rainbow hues. He was assaulted by the memory of Lucius' contemptuous face as he'd spoken the unforgivable curse at Hermione. In a fit of rage he yelled, "You fucking killed my wife!" He grabbed the vase and hurled it at the window, which shattered. For a few moments he stared angrily at the broken glass, frigid air rushing into the room, then sank to the floor, burying his head in his knees. Eventually he came to his senses enough to use his wand to repair the window, then found a bottle of scotch in the cabinet, and got mind-numbingly drunk.

After several days of relentless overindulgence, he'd opted to take the edge off of his hangover by meeting Remus for drinks. He couldn't stand the looks of sympathy, even from Neville, who lived with his own parents' madness. The shock of loss, its unrelenting persistence, hour after aching hour, and day by day, Lupin knew. Ron was drawn to his company, a newly-blind man instinctively turning toward remembered light.

They sat across two bottles of Orkney SkullSplitters, Ron half-heartedly smoking a cigarette. Remus laid a warm hand on his, and Ron raised his head to look into his companion's kind golden eyes.

"I could tell you that it gets easier," he said gently, "but I never was much of a liar."

Ron made a feeble attempt at a smile, then nodded and withdrew his hand to take a deep swig of ale.

"It does become bearable, if only that," Lupin continued after swallowing some of his own ale, then placing the bottle on the table. "But you never forget. It's been six years, and I still think I see him places."

It had taken Ron a while, a good couple of years, in fact, to understand that Remus and Sirius had not been just good mates, they were _RemusandSirius_. Hermione had been dumbfounded that he hadn't noticed anything during the Christmas at Grimmauld Place their fifth year. "I've always been daft; you told me so often enough!" he had joked back. "Emotional capacity of a teaspoon, didn't you say?" and then he would smother her with kisses.

Now Ron felt suddenly achey, as though he had a fever. His own body betrayed him; he hated sleeping alone, always cold.

"What did you do?" Ron asked wretchedly. "I mean, right after?"

Lupin looked knowingly at him. "You're going to burn your fingers," he said, nodding at the cigarette in Ron's freckled fingers, almost burned to the filter.

"Thanks," Ron mumbled, grinding it out into an ashtray.

"Molly consoled me," Remus said.

Ron looked at him strangely. "Mum? You?"

"Amazing warmth of heart, she has," Remus continued, then took a pull on his pint. "But ultimately you realise that the person is never gone."

Ron mulled over the comment. "So I'll be haunted. Fucking brilliant," he said, more to his beer than to Lupin.

"It isn't fair, Ron," Remus said, after draining his bottle. "You don't have to go through this alone, though."

They sat in silence for awhile until the older man said, "I have to meet up with someone from the Order. You know where my flat is?"

Ron nodded, his hair hanging limply at his shoulders, his own personal hygiene having taken a back seat to his mourning process.

"Cheers, mate," the redhead said as Remus stood up from the table and shrugged on a threadbare coat.

Lupin gave him a surprisingly jaunty, yet somehow melancholy salute. Ron, staring bleary-eyed, said, "You need someone to dress you! That trench's hideous!"

Remus smiled. "Yes, it is. Tell Dumbledore I need an increase in pay."

Then Ron was alone at the table, a crushed pack of cigarettes and two empty beer bottles for company.

***

Once back at the house, Ron took a shower, after shutting the Muggle deadbolts on the doors, as though that would keep anyone he knew out. It did keep him inside, however, and therefore less likely to incur a cracked head should he fall down the stairs in a fit of drunken stupidity.

He couldn't help it, but he wanted to feel something besides gnawingly empty. As the water pounded on his back, he tried running his fingers over his chest, over the slight paunch he had developed in his belly, over fiery hair to his…

Well, he tried. He tried to imagine it was her, or relive moments when he had imagined it was her, or that really attractive coach of the Norwegian Northwinds, a visiting Quidditch team from Scandinavia. Bollocks, but she had seemed to have thighs that went on forever under a surprisingly short skirt, given the climate. And it hadn't been summer, either.

It was no use. He turned off the cold, trying to scald himself, but their water heater had never been that good. Eventually he stopped the shower, dried off, and put on a rather ancient bathrobe which barely reached his knees. Ron now prided himself in his ability to be self-indulgent, hearing all-too-faintly Hermione's chastisements in his head. His long white feet tripped over Crookshank's litter box, which needed cleaning.

"Fucking hell!" he swore, hopping loopily on one foot, grasping for the doorframe, then rubbing his big toe.

Muttering various other unmentionables, he made his way to their room and crawled under the knitted blanket. After closing his eyes and imaging all kinds of foul language that he hoped would make Hermione's hair curl from even beyond the grave and somehow bring her back, his hand grasped the remote for the CD player. The track of the song that she had been listening to only a few days ago came on, and with a start Ron realised that it was Christmas Eve.

He burrowed under the blanket.

***

In the morning he awoke, shivering, the same song on repeat just as when Hermione had programmed it. Crookshanks was at the side of the bed, meowing angrily at him.

"Aw, 'Shanks, give me a minute," he mumbled before hearing his brother's voice.

"Ron."

He rubbed his eyes, and sat up halfway, clutching the cover to his chest.

"No comments about- oh, it's you, George. Fred was giving me grief."

George raised an eyebrow. "About?"

Ron rolled his eyes. "Nevermind." He ran both hands through his hair. "What're you doing here? I'm a bachelor now. Can't cook to save my life. Don't know what's in the fridge. D'you wanna starve with me?"

George sat down on the bed and Crookshanks jumped up into his lap, purring.

"S'bloody traitor, that cat," Ron muttered, shaking his fist in a feebly menacing manner. "Where's your loyalty, eh?" George shook his head. "I'm sure Hermione didn't leave you without coffee, or tea, at the least." He stood up, placing Crookshanks gingerly on the bed, though the cat promptly jumped down and rubbed his head repeatedly against George's ankles.

"Yeah. S'all in the kitchen," Ron replied, then turned over. "Oy," he mumbled morosely. "Prezzies." He sank back into the bed. There was sure to be a small pile in the living room near the fireplace, including a delicate watch with absolutely miniscule emeralds in it. Despite the gems' size, Ron had known that Hermione would love it. He looked down at his hands, his silver wedding band gleaming far too brightly in the morning sun.

He began wrestling with it, breathing on it, then trying miserably to wrench it off, when his eye glanced on a bit of white against the green of the blanket. Momentarily distracted by the smell of coffee in the kitchen, he paused and leaned forward to grasp at it, drawing up his knees as he looked at the unexpected parchment.

He stared at it for a while, the handwriting distressingly familiar. Once opened, he read:

_Dear Ron, I wish that I could have said something to you, but I couldn't. Know that you're not alone in mourning Hermione. Someday soon you can tell me what happened, but until then, you better train that Seeker of yours. The Swiss will clobber her._

Ron attempted a feeble grin despite himself, but found that he wiped away a tear instead.

_She loved you, Ron. More than she ever admitted to anyone._

_But I think you knew that._

_I hope to see you soon, and not in the dead of night while you're snoring._

_Be careful,_

_HP_

With a _meorw-umph!_ sound, Crookshanks leapt up on the bed, insistently burrowing under Ron's hands.

"We're doomed," he said sadly, scratching under the cat's bony jaw.

"We're what?" George echoed, bringing in two cups of potent coffee, handing a cracked Chudley Cannons mug to Ron.

"Oh, nothing," Ron said, shoving the piece of parchment into an undersized pocket. "'Love is the whole and more than all.'"

George stared at him for a moment, then sat down heavily on the bed. "Poetry," he murmured. "Mum will be so pleased. She'll think you're channeling Bill from beyond the grave."

Ron shook his head, blowing on the coffee. "I'm haunted," he replied, breathing deeply. "Bill, now Hermione…" he shook his head. "Never quite gone." He stared into the black beverage, then turned reddened eyes toward his brother.

"Muggle poetry," he struggled. "I can never fully go back, y'know?"

He took a couple of sips of the coffee before placing it on the bedside table. George left the bedroom to putter around the kitchen, then played around a bit with the telephone, disturbing several Muggle residents in town during their Christmas celebrations before going back to check on his younger brother.

Ron was curled up into a large pink pillow, Crookshanks under his arm. George took the mug and washed it, then Apparated home.

Ron dreamed of sweet toffee-flavored kisses, of clear eyes framed by rogue curly hair, of chants and spells and the faint orange smell of Grand Marnier.

******

The song Hermione has on repeat is from Ralph Vaughan Williams' _Christmas Hodie,_ Choral XV. Verse one, which is partially quoted in this story, is by one of my favorite composers, "Anonymous."

The title of this story and the brief phrase Ron quotes toward the end is from a poem by e.e. cummings, "my father moved through dooms of love." It seemed both to fit his situation as well as that of Remus/Sirius.


End file.
